Footage shows off-duty cop beating woman
2013-04-12 15:42
Cape Town - The under-fire South African Police Service faced a fresh scandal on Friday after footage emerged of an off-duty officer hitting and kicking an unarmed woman.
The security footage, broadcast by the eNCA television channel, shows the man striking the woman to the ground on a petrol station forecourt before launching a sustained assault.
Two uniformed officers are also filmed at the scene, making modest, and ultimately unsuccessful, efforts to restrain their colleague.
But the solidly built man strikes again and chases the woman, kicking her. As she falls to the ground he stamps on her head.
The two uniformed officers allow the man to leave the scene without arrest.
The assault on the woman was filmed at a petrol station on 5 April shortly after 21:00.
The man was identified as a warrant officer in Smithfield, in the Free State.
He was in civilian clothes and arrived at the station in a sedan car.
The incident is being probed by the country's police watchdog.
"We are investigating it," Moses Dlamini, spokesperson for the Independent Police Investigative Directorate told AFP.
It is the latest criminal incident involving police captured on film.
In February explosive footage emerged of a Mozambican taxi driver being dragged down a road while handcuffed behind a police van.
He later died in police custody.